No ‘secret deal’ for financier jailed in US$2.5B bank collapse

Santo Domingo.- The lawyers for money laundering convict Luis Alvarez Renta on Wednesday said the financier has paid voluntarily or with properties appropriated by the authorities, at least three times more than what the Central Bank received in the secret agreement with Ramón Baez Figueroa, former president of the failed bank Baninter, who was paroled.

They said the financier has turned in all his assets and accounts, and a part of the assets of his children and relatives, "and did so without secret agreements of any kind."

"Mr. Alvarez Renta, therefore, feels strangely with the monetary authorities’ and the Justice Minister’s insistence to sign an agreement similar to the Báez Figueroa’s, and seeks with legitimate right to acknowledge the resources of his property confiscated by the Central Bank and establish the whereabouts of those resources with an audit," they said in a statement.

They affirm that the authorities have refused to account for the total amount and whereabouts of the properties seized from Alvarez Renta.

Moreover, a proposal to the Justice Ministry and the Central Bank Governor discards signing any clause to protect impunities, and demand a public and transparent agreement based on having the right to reclaim the amount of the goods and accounts and compensation, if he can prove his innocence.

Alvarez Renta was convicted in he collapse of Baninter, the country’s biggest ever bank failure, cost Dominican payers US$2.5 billion.